“How shall we get at him?” asked Oliphant.
“We can leave that to Abdul, I think,” replied Tom. “He is used to ship-board, and he has been on the end of our rope before.”
Abdul understood what was required of him. Letting down the rope with the grapnel at the end, he swarmed nimbly down, armed only with his knife. The two in the car smiled to see what ensued. Salathiel was unarmed. He broke forth in a torrent of mingled threats and entreaties as the Moor approached him, then lay on his back and tried to repel the lad with his feet. But Abdul got behind him, and by discreet employment of the point of his knife at length persuaded the Jew into the open.
Then Tom let the airship gently down. When it stood upon terra firma, he and Oliphant leapt out of the car, bundled Salathiel into it, and in another minute were soaring through the air towards their former resting-place on the hill. With Salathiel’s added weight the airship travelled somewhat slowly, and for some time, when a breeze rose from the eastward, it had considerable difficulty in making headway at all. But at last the flat-topped hill was opened up on the horizon, Tom estimating that the return journey had taken more than twice as long as the outward trip in the morning.
CHAPTER X—THE KASBAH
Instead of alighting on the former spot on the top of the hill, Tom this time let the airship down at the foot.
“We haven’t darkness to cover us this time,” he said, “and we don’t want to be spied from the village.”
“What are you going to do with our fat friend?” asked Oliphant.
“Well, I thought of taking him some miles into the wilder parts of the hills and leaving him; but I don’t want to use any more of our fuel than I can help. Besides, I don’t want to have the fellow murdered, though his Moor friend might have done for poor Timothy. What do you say to giving him a lodging in one of the caves?”
“But how in the world could we get him up there?”